


Shed Seven Tears Into The Sea

by falter



Category: Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 15:34:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15052364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falter/pseuds/falter
Summary: Jamia's having an academic crisis. An advisor crisis. An academic crush.  That counts as a crisis, right?Prompt 4. Jamia/Lindsey (or Jamia & Lindsey), Cryptid hunters in a world where maybe cryptids are real.





	Shed Seven Tears Into The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my lovely beta, to be revealed later. <3

They're sprawled in the bed, Frank absently petting the length of her spine while he lights a cigarette one-handed. She'd come home from campus edgy and irritable; dinner and a beer and she'd been able to laugh when he'd tumbled her to the floor, and had kept laughing as they made their way, eventually, to the bedroom. It's dusk, the sky is pale grey and the trees and roofs black shapes against it, and the breeze is soft and ticklish on her sweaty skin. She can just barely hear the ocean.

Frank leans across her to reach the ashtray, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. She can hear the puppy snoring in the doorway. It's perfect. Her life is perfect.

Jamia takes a deep breath and tries to relax. It comes out a sigh, and Frank huffs a little laugh at her, soft and quiet. "You want to talk about it?" His voice is soft, too, like if she wants to say no, or fall asleep, or throw things, or spend another night awake and trying to untangle her thesis instead, it's all acceptable.

That doesn't make it easier, though. "No. Yes." She pushes her face into the pillow and growls, which really does make him laugh, and when she turns onto her side and looks at him, he smooths her hair back out of her face and crooks an eyebrow. "Maybe." She sighs again.

"Lindsey?" Frank asks.

Jamia rolls her eyes a little at the question. Of course it's Lindsey, it's always Lindsey when she gets like this, and she knows she deserves the teasing. It's embarrassingly clichéd to develop a crush on your advisor. And stupid. But Frank looks serious, and sympathetic, and when she takes a minute to think about it, she can't remember the last time he teased her about it, not really. "Yes. She's...I don't know, maybe I'm being paranoid."

Frank hums a little at that, not quite contradicting her, but she knows he wants to. He doesn't always understand the world she lives in, though.

"It's possible!" she says. "She just seems, I don't know. Distracted? We met this morning about my research, and I think the new genetic analysis stuff is strong, but I know it's not the direction she wants me to take, and I was ready to make a case for it, but she just said my progress was good and barely asked any questions." 

Frank nods. His face is still serious, eyes shining strange and dark in the increasing gloom.

She sighs again at her own ridiculousness. "I heard a rumor when I was getting coffee. I think she's going on sabbatical."

"Aw, baby." Frank reaches across her again to get rid of his cigarette and squirms his way down the bed, shoving the tangle of sheets out of the way until he's pressed tight up against her, skin to skin. "Is it okay if I talk through this a little? You tell me if I'm missing any pieces."

Jamia smiles into his shoulder. "Sure."

Frank presses a kiss half-against her temple and takes a deep breath. "So. Worst case, Lindsey is ducking out on being your advisor and she thinks your work is so bad that she is fleeing to Tibet or someplace so that she never has to see you or be associated with you ever again."

Jamia pinches him, hard, and he yelps. "I said worst case! Don't be mean!"

"You don't be mean, asshole." She's smiling, though.

"I'm making a point." Frank wriggles against her until he can look her in the eye. "How many times have you told me about how much you love how honest she is with you?"

"Is that a real question?" Jamia asks.

"I don't know, can you count high enough to give me a real answer?" This time he catches her hand and twines their fingers together before she can pinch him again. "Okay, so the worst case is clearly not on the table. Best case? No sabbatical, she was tired or something today, she'll bust your balls about the genetic stuff next time you meet, whatever."

"I'll bust **your** balls," she mumbles.

"Pfff, what's mine is yours, baby, you know that. As long as you keep me."

"What if it's neither, though?"

Frank's quiet for a minute. "Well. What are the other options? She goes on sabbatical and advises you long-distance? She networks you up with some other hot shit paleobiologists? She steals you away from me and takes you with her to Tibet, and I die of a broken heart?" He pauses again, but she's not distracted by his melodrama. "You call her tomorrow first thing and get her to meet you for coffee and ask her?"

"Ugh. Why you gotta be reasonable, Iero?"

He rolls away from her so fast the mattress bounces, and she blinks in the sudden brightness of the overhead light. "The hell?"

"Hang on," he says. "I need to write this on the calendar, you said I was reasonable, I don't want to forget this."

"I meant ridiculous." She looks at him rummaging around pretending to look for a pen, and at the puppy, awake now and watching them both. "...you know you still have one sock on, right?"

***

"You have reached the voicemail of Dr Lindsey Ballato. If this is an emergency, you should probably be calling someone else. If you're calling about a meeting, you should be emailing the department admin, she's great, she's the only reason I'm ever where I'm supposed to be. She could use a raise, or failing that, she accepts offerings of flowers and baklava. If you're calling about something else, you should be emailing me. Don't leave a message at the beep, unless it's poetry. Or a short story. Acoustic art also accept--" Lindsey's tinny voice is cut off by the beep, and Jamia disconnects the call before there's any risk that it will record.

She leans out into the hallway so that she can see Lindsey's office door. Still closed, and the window is still dark. Jamia sits back and tries to focus again on the journal article she's reading. There's something off about it, like it's supporting a second thesis if she could only tease out the right arguments, but she can't concentrate well enough to crack whatever code it's written in. Maybe it's just weird editing, but Lindsey had told her to check it out and she still isn't quite sure why. The _Journal of Paleolimnology_ isn't full of other weirdly edited work, though; Jamia's spent all morning pretending she needs to stay in the atrium with it, so as distracted as she is, she knows that much.

She stands up again and rummages in her bag as an excuse to look down the hall again. The door's still closed.

"She'll come for her mail before she goes into her office, you aren't going to miss her." The voice comes from right next to her, and she startles a little. She should be used to Chantal not missing anything by now, though. She really is the best admin on campus.

"Um. Thanks." She smiles back at Chantal. "Am I in your way?"

"Yep. Scoot over." Chantal tugs on one of the filing cabinet drawers next to the chair Jamia's been occupying and pulls out three thick folders before hipchecking the drawer closed again. "I can tell Dr Ballato that you're looking for her, if you don't want to stay here? Or is it something I can help with?"

"No, I -- well, I really just wanted to run into her and get a coffee or something, and check on a thing. She's usually here by now, right?"

Chantal sits back down at her desk and gives Jamia a long look. "A "thing", huh? I guess I can't help, then." Her tone is a little sharp, but her expression is kind. "Lindsey's here. She always lets me know if she's not going to be on campus, she's just been tying up a lot of loose ends this week."

Jamia can feel her expression drop, and she bends down to pick up her bag, but she knows Chantal is looking at her quizzically. "I'll head down, I can send her an email, you don't need to tell her I'm looking for her. Thanks!" Her smile feels brittle, too tight, fake, but she pretends she can't tell that Chantal is trying to say something and manages to keep her expression in place until she makes it to the basement stairs. Her tiny office will be cool and dim and quiet today, neither of the other grad students she shares it with are in on Wednesdays, and she'll shut the door and get her head down and holy fuck it must be true, Jamia has at least another eight months of research and writing to do and what's she going to do without Lindsey's insight and encouragement and hard questions? Shit. Fuck. She's going to cry and decode this fucking journal article and email Dr Ballato to say she's sorry she missed her and she'll see her at their regular meeting next week and go home and crawl into bed and make Frank and his stupid faith in her sleep on the fucking sofa.

She's so wrapped up in her plans to get through the day that she's right in front of her office door before she registers that it's standing open, and the tiny lamp on her desk is switched on, and Lindsey is sitting at Jamia's desk, papers spread out in front of her and a pen between her teeth, and the soft light makes her look ridiculously beautiful and unreal, outlined in gold, and what the fuck.

Jamia's standing in the doorway, and her eyes feel puffy even though she'd managed not to start crying yet, and Jesus, she's suddenly so angry she can't catch her breath, and Lindsey is smiling at her, expectant, like Jamia has come to her office rather than the other way around. Her voice comes out flat. "What." She thinks maybe she means why, but she doesn't have it in her right now to say anything else, she's too -- something.

Lindsey's smile fades, and she looks wrong-footed. First for everything, thinks Jamia, and she feels a little bit of guilty satisfaction before she thinks better of torching her academic career in a fit of pique. "Sorry, not enough coffee today," and she lets herself relax, smile at Lindsey the way she always wants to, and asks, "were you waiting for me?"

Lindsey's smile doesn't come back. She looks serious. Her hair is in a thick, dark braid, and there's ink on her fingers, and Jamia can't quite make out her eyes behind the reflection of the lamplight on her glasses. "Jamia. Have a seat. Do you mind if we close the door?"

There's no one else in the basement this time of day. She'd thought the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach was as bad as it could get, but this is worse.

"No?" Jamia does the little sidestep required to get into the tiny office and close the door behind her, and Lindsey pushes the chair she's using against the wall so that Jamia can drop her bag in the corner, tug the chair out from behind Jim's desk, and sit down facing her. There's kind of almost enough space for three people to use the office at the same time, but only if they're all at their desks, and warn each other every time they need to get up. Sitting this way, it's hard to keep her knees from bumping against Lindsey's.

"I wanted to talk with you about your research topic," Lindsey says. "And your dissertation." She pauses, and takes a deep breath. "And our working relationship."

Jamia can feel herself nodding, yes, of course. "Of course. I thought maybe we should talk, I was going to -- well."

Lindsey smiles at that, which seems strange. "Gossip! I thought you might have heard something." Her smile is beautiful, and distracting. It makes Jamia smile back at her, helplessly. Lindsey's excitement is contagious, it always has been, and Jamia is going to miss having Lindsey's enthusiasm to fuel her, but she can't resent it, not right now. "It's private funding, and we won't be able to publish openly, neither of us need the grief, but it's more than enough for the year, and I do think it will have an amazing impact on what you've been working on, and I'll help you navigate publishing that, if you're comfortable with the delay, and with the risk, because there's always some risk, we could both lose our reputations. I've been doing this for nearly my entire career, though, and I've managed it?" Lindsey's voice goes up at the end, like a question, and Jamia isn't sure what she's being asked.

"You've managed it," she repeats back, because that seems safe, and true enough. Wait. "Both?"

Lindsey's eyes go wide, just for a moment, briefly enough that Jamia almost misses it. She takes off her glasses, folds them, and sets them down atop the papers she's piled on Jamia's desk. She sets her hands flat, palms down on her thighs, carefully relaxed. "I guess I should have asked first: what gossip have you heard?"

Jamia thinks for a moment, about how still Lindsey is sitting. And about what other gossip there is about her. How it's mostly about how she disappears over breaks, unless she's attending a conference, of course. About how people see her out with the person who some people say is her girlfriend, and some people say is her boyfriend, how they always seem like they are sharing secrets, heads close together and holding hands, how they never seem to notice anyone else nearby. About her astonishingly prolific publishing schedule, and the jokes about deals with the devil. About how much respect everyone has for her, about how everyone listens to what she has to say, across the curriculum. About how, since Lindsey became her advisor, sometimes people stop talking when she's around. And thinking about all of that, she says, "I heard you might be taking a sabbatical."

"Hmmm. That's all?"

Jamia nods.

"Jamia." Lindsey takes her hand, and smiles again. "Will you go on an adventure with me?"

***

When she opens the door to their apartment, Frank is setting the table and she can smell the lasagna in the oven. She kicks off her shoes and lets her bag drop to the floor, keeping her grip on the bottle of whisky she picked up on the way home. He watches her set it on the kitchen table, keeping his face neutral. The puppy is under the table, looking exhausted. They must have gone running on the beach again, down by the boardwalk. He's barefoot, and she leans into him, and his arms wrap around her, and she slides her hands into his back pockets just because she can, and he squeezes her and kisses the top of her head and ushers her into a chair while he gets the lasagna out of the oven and puts the garlic bread in.

She watches him and rests her chin on her hand and thinks about how much she loves him, while he pulls two juice glasses out of the cupboard and sets them next to the bottle, piles the hot garlic bread into a basket, sets the lasagna pan on the trivet in the dead center of the table, and sits down across from her.

"I love you," she says to him.

He smiles, wide like he can't help it, like it surprises him every time. "I'm so lucky," he says back to her. "I love you, too."

She laughs at that, like she always does. "Luck has nothing to do with it, dork," she says, and cracks open the bottle, pouring them each a glass.

He uses his spoon to drip water into each, frowning until he's satisfied, then sitting back expectantly. "You talked to Lindsey?"

Jamia lifts her glass and holds it until he lifts his as well, and she holds his gaze as they both drink. The warmth spreads through her chest; it's good, a little better than what they usually buy. "I talked with Lindsey." She refills both of their glasses. "It's a lot. We have a lot to talk about." He's smiling, because she is. She laughs; it just bubbles out of her.

He raises an eyebrow, and she keeps laughing, and they drink again while he dishes up the lasagna.

She starts giggling again, and he says, "Sounds like a good talk," and that makes her laugh even harder, so he shrugs and smiles and starts to eat.

He's nearly halfway through his plate when she catches her breath and pushes her plate away to make space for her elbows on the table. She's feeling a little woozy already from the whisky but she needs to get this out before she eats, she feels like there's no space inside her for anything else. She covers her eyes with her fingertips and says, "Lindsey offered me an opportunity to do fieldwork with her. Fully funded. I'd need to take a leave from the university, though, and delay my program and defense." She peeks at him; he looks curious, and maybe a little proud, and a little sad.

"You should do it," Frank says.

"That's not all of it." She reaches across the table, and he takes her hands. "I mean, thank you. I'll only be gone three months at a time, but it is a whole year, and it's going to be amazing, but I'm going to miss you."

"You **should** miss me," Frank says, "But you should still do it. Also, you should do Lindsey if you get the chance."

Jamia pulls her hands back and covers her face. She can feel herself blushing. "Quit making fun, dick."

She hears his chair, and the soft sound of his bare footsteps as he circles the table and kneels beside her. He tugs her hands away from her face, and his eyes are big and dark, and he leans in and kisses her. "I'm not making fun. I love you." He kisses her again, deep and slow, and it tastes a little of salt, like her tears or the sea. "You should," he says. "If you want to, and she wants to. I know you love me. I know you'll always keep me."

She deflates a little at that, and nods at him, and gives in to the urge to run her fingers through his hair and tug a little, the way he likes. "There's still academic ethics to think about."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Frank gets up and goes back to his chair, picking up his fork and pointing it at her. "You're both adults, wait until your defense if you gotta, get a new advisor if you want, but in the meantime, eat your fucking dinner, it's getting cold."

The way she's grinning makes it hard to eat, but she does her best.

***

She washes, and he dries, and when everything is clean again, Frank holds up the bottle and the juice glasses and says, "You said there was more. Does more need another drink?"

Does it ever, she wants to say. She almost says. "Yes," she does say, and they move to the living room and she tucks herself against him on the sofa. He pours, and she sips, and she wonders where to start. "So," she begins, but nothing else comes out of her mouth. She takes another long sip, and tries again. "So. It turns out Lindsey has a second research focus. An unofficial one, that runs on private funding, without support from a school." She stops, waiting to see if Frank can fill in the blanks. She's not sure she can say it if he doesn't ask.

He does. "Right, that's why leave from the university. Okay." He shifts a little. "Is it secret, what she studies?"

"Kind of." Jamia takes a deep breath, then another sip, then another deep breath. "She's researching marine cryptids. Sea monsters." And that's it, Jamia is cracking up, she's giggling again, it's all just so ridiculous. "Mythical...water..." She gasps, and Frank's starting to laugh as well, not as helplessly as she is, but she felt his jolt of surprise when she said it, and he takes the glass gently out of her hand and sets it on the floor, and eases them both down and holds her close until she's able to breathe through it, and smiles at her.

She's laughed so hard tears have run down her face, and Frank kisses them away, the same as he always does, and his lips taste like salt, and he whispers to her, "Well, then you definitely have to do it," and he keeps kissing her, and tugs his soft sealskin down from the back of the sofa, to cover them both.


End file.
